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Todays S&P 500 Chart

Sales in Honeywell's aerospace business, which activist investor Daniel Loeb wants to be spun off, fell about 3 percent to $3.67 billion in the second quarter ended June 30, but the drop was much smaller than the company's forecast of 5 to 7 percent. Honeywell is reviewing Loeb's demand and the company is expected to announce a decision by early fall. Meanwhile, Honeywell said it was looking to scale up its smaller businesses.The company may look at M&A opportunities to boost its performance materials and technologies (PMT) business and safety and productivity solutions (SPS) unit, Chief Financial Officer Thomas Szlosek told Reuters.

The Market in Perspective

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A group of Democrats in Congress urged the U.S. Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission in a letter this week to conduct a more in-depth review of online retailer Amazon.com Inc's plan to buy grocer Whole Foods Market Inc.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Global pizza brands Domino's and Papa John's are preparing an assault on Russia's provinces, betting they can turn a profit far from Moscow as online card payments become more widespread and consumers get to know foreign brands better.

WASHINGTON, (Reuters) - Ford Motor Co will petition to avoid a U.S. recall of about 2.5 million vehicles with Takata air-bag inflators that the Japanese auto supplier declared defective last week, U.S. regulators and the automaker said Friday.

(Reuters) - General Electric Co's shares dropped sharply on Friday after it posted a 59-percent decline in second-quarter profit and put off an expected cut to 2018 earnings targets until November, when new CEO John Flannery will be four months into his job.

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India plans to seek an explanation from Philip Morris International Inc about its marketing practices after Reuters reported that the tobacco giant used tactics that government officials say flout the country's law, a health ministry official said on Friday.

(Reuters) - The U.S. Department of Labor on Friday ordered Wells Fargo & Co to pay $575,000 and to rehire a whistleblower the bank had dismissed in September 2011 after the former employee raised concerns over the opening of customer accounts without their knowledge, the agency said in a statement.

(Reuters) - Honeywell International Inc reported a better-than-expected quarterly profit, as sales in its aerospace unit and the business that caters to the energy industry were not as bad as it had feared.

On June 12, the rates market was fascinated with what was then described as an "unprecedented" vol trade: as Bloomberg described at the time, an unknown trader bought $10 million of out-of-the-money puts and calls on 10Y Treasury futs (i.e., a strangle) when the 10Y was yielding 2.38%, which was notable as it involved huge block sizes of about 63,500 on either side: "a strangle of that magnitude is rare, and possibly unprecedented" according to several rates traders who spoke to Bloomberg. The theta on the trade was so high that just to recoup the premium, the yield on the 10Y would have to rise or fall about 10 bps from 2.38%, and preferably very soon. Once the 10Y were to move beyond 10bps, gains are unlimited, and the trader "stands to gain about $50 million on a quarter-point move in either direction from the starting level, which would involve approaching this year's highs and lows for 10-year yields."

Just as notable was the trade's short maturity, which expired on the July 21 settlement at 3pm, i.e. moments ago.

So where did the trade close? As Bloomberg's Edward Bolingbroke writes, "despite the latest dip from session highs after a $400k/DV01 TY block sale, the underlying September TY futures which closed around 126-10 level represent a profit of around $10m on the strangle."

With the premium on the August TY 124/126 strangle around $10m as of 2:45pm ET (15 min ahead of options expiry) the trade was worth around $20m, or a profit of $10 million.

So congratulations to the unknown trader, who doubled his risk in less than ...

Despite the recent weakness, the price of gold is still up 9% year to date and may be poised for a strong second half of 2017. This is not unusual: the yellow metal also had a strong start in 2016, only to give back some gains but ended the year in an uptrend, setting up a rally as the calendar moved to 2017.

So is there a seasonal pattern to the gold price?

To answer that question, we dissected gold's performance dating back to 1975 and identified some trends investors can use to their advantage.

March/April Are Gold's Worst Months...Often Followed by Weakness in the Spring and Summer

Source: LBMA

Since 1975, March has been the worst month for gold, followed by April as the second-worst. The months of June and July tend to be a quieter period as investors shift their focus prior to strong later summer and fall months.

September has been the best month for gold over the past 41 years. Coincidentally (or not), September is also the worst month for the S&P 500.

As the chart shows, three-quarters of gold's top-performing months are in the latter half of the year—a good reason to consider buying in June or July if you want to add physical precious metals to your portfolio.

After we noted earlier this morning that Trump intended to launch a counteroffensive against an investigation he has frequently referred to as a "witch hunt," Special Counsel Mueller has just fired back with a request that all White House staff preserve all records related to Donald Trump Jr.'s now infamous June 2016 meeting with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya. Apparently he wasn't deterred.

As usual, today's latest Trump-Russia revelation came from anonymous sources speaking to CNN:

Special counsel Robert Mueller has asked the White House to preserve all documents relating to the June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower that Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort had with a Russian lawyer and others, according to a source who has seen the letter.

Mueller sent a notice, called a document preservation request, asking White House staff to save "any subjects discussed in the course of the June 2016 meeting" and also "any decisions made regarding the recent disclosures about the June 2016 meeting," according to the source, who read portions of the letter to CNN.

The letter from Mueller began: "As you are aware the Special Counsel's office is investigating the Russian government's efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election, including any links or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of Donald Trump. Information concerning the June 2016 meeting between Donald J Trump Jr and Natalia Veselnitskaya is relevant to the investigation."

The emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim, is delivering his first public address since the breakout of the Qatar crisis and blockade by a Saudi-led alliance of Arab nations. Watch it live below, highlights will follow.

The key soundbites:

Qatari emir: The smear campaign and unlawful campaign against Qatar was premeditated pic.twitter.com/86lN3tMhDh

Private equity groups Blackstone and CVC are looking to join the payments party with a preliminary near-$4 billion offer for U.K.-listed Paysafe, the company revealed Friday. It looks like a gamble Paysafe shareholders should welcome.

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